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How to Make a New Swimming Skill Automatic

With repetition, practice, and review, your child will turn the new movement you’re teaching into something habitual and ingrained that requires very little thought. In the early stages, though, each moment of what he’s doing takes a lot of focus and attention. How do you help your kids practice new skills to make them old hat when you’re teaching them to swim?

Make it easy

It’s easiest for kids to learn when they’re fresh and their bodies and minds aren’t too tired. Depending on how long you’ve spent on getting into the pool, reviewing, playing, and teaching the new skill, you’ll probably have between one and five minutes to practice. This may not seem like much, but remember that today’s new skill is the skill you’ll be reviewing at length in your next swimming lesson. The important thing is to introduce the skill and give your child a chance to get a small taste of how it feels.

Switch it up

If your child gets frustrated, switch to a different approach to the same skill or to a different skill entirely. Look at what he’s finding difficult and demonstrate it again. Touch his body. Have him touch your body. Feeling his own ankle when it’s flexed and pointed will be helpful, but seeing and feeling your ankle when it’s flexed and pointed will give him a different perspective.

Make it clear

Acknowledge the small subtle things that are happening as your child practices. Point out how balance and buoyancy come into play, highlighting which parts of the body are more likely to sink and which parts are more likely to float. Talk about how his body moves and feels in the water. Keep it brief and to the point, just a touch and a “feel your knee?” while he’s swimming is the most attention he can spare while he’s also trying to practice moving. Save the details for later when you’re on dry land.

Keep it simple

Remember to progress from easy to difficult and from simple to complex:

  • When you’re working on floating, start with providing lots of physical support and progress to providing little or none.
  • When you’re working on a distance, start with short and work up to the width or length of the pool.
  • When you start a skill, speed doesn’t matter. Work up to being able to do it fast or at different speeds.
  • When you start a skill, refine it slowly. At first, just doing it is enough. As you practice, work on refining body position, then movement, and then timing.

Keep it up

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, today’s new skill is tomorrow’s review. Don’t expect all the learning to happen at once. It’s during review and practice that those new skills will sink in and become automatic for your kids.

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Time to Play! Treading Water

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them. Treading water can be tiring and boring. Once your kids have got the idea, they’ll still need to practice. Here’s a simple game that turns treading water into fun for everyone.

When your kids are solid water-treaders, play catch while you’re all treading water. Don’t try this until they’re comfortable treading water for a minute or two without distraction. Take breaks whenever somebody gets tired or has a giggle fit.

This game is simple, but it’s challenging. It forces your kids (and you) to do the work with their legs. It distracts them from the boring part, because they’ll have to focus on the ball. It challenges you to make the game work: you need to throw the ball right to them, and you need to catch the ball no matter how far away from you they throw it. Not only is playing catch while treading water a great way for your kids to learn to be comfortable with the skill, but it’s also guaranteed to give you newfound appreciation for water polo players.

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Backtrack to Move Forward When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

How can going backwards help you move forward when you’re teaching your kids to swim?

It reinforces what they’ve learned and gives them the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the swimming skill you’re working on. It also prepares them for learning the next skill without the awkwardness of not fully understanding what’s come before.

I discussed the importance of reviewing in an earlier post. Here are some steps to take to make reviewing work for you.

Set Your Expectations

Don’t expect your child to pick up where you left off at the end of the last lesson. Backtrack a bit and work up to the skills your child was working on at the end of the last lesson. If there are skills your child has already mastered, you don’t need to work on them in every lesson.

Where to Start

Start your review at the very beginning of the previous lesson’s new material and spend five to ten minutes practicing it. If your child feels really confident after the first five minutes, you can move on. If he still seems tentative, use more of your lesson on review.

Let Your Kids Riff

Try having your child experiment with doing the skill in different ways and comparing the results. Ask him to point out what he thinks works the best. Steer him away from unsafe or ineffective movements.

Play!

Ask your child how he thinks things are going. After some practice, make the skill a vehicle for play.

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Getting Your Kids into the Pool for the First Time When You’re Teaching Them to Swim

Getting into the pool can be quick and easy or it can take most of your time, depending on where you and your child are in the process. Unless getting into the pool is the new skill you’re teaching or is the recently learned skill that you’re reviewing, take just a minute or two to get into the pool together. If you’re getting into the pool together for the first time, you can use this technique to get into the pool.

Getting into the Pool

If your child does want to try getting into the pool, seat him on the edge of the pool. Keep a hand on him while you climb into the pool first. Making sure you’re stable, stand facing your child, and use both arms to transfer him from the edge of the pool into a close hug. Keep your head and your child’s head close together and at the same level to help him feel secure.

Once You’re In

Splash together, play together, and explore the feel of the water together. Don’t give in to the temptation to start a lesson. This visit is just for getting used to the water.

Getting Used to the Water

When your child is first getting used to the water, try to avoid splashing his face with water. Instead, get his face wet gently, by stroking him with your fingers. If his face does get wet, don’t wipe it off. There’s nothing wrong with getting a little wet, so don’t send a non-verbal message that says otherwise.

When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim, Leave Them Wanting More

Don’t push practice too long. Not only does it stop being fun, but also it’s physically less effective. If your child is tired, everything will feel harder and scarier.

The Most Important Thing

After safety, the most important thing to accomplish on your first visit to the pool is to have fun. You’re not just introducing your child to the water. You’re also introducing him to the style and approach you’ll take when you’re teaching him to swim, setting up his expectations for how he’ll feel about spending time in the pool with you, and setting in motion the development of feelings he’ll have toward swimming for the rest of his life. If it’s not fun, step back, adjust your expectations for yourself and your child, and try for fun again. Not only will it help your child learn, it’ll be…fun.